{"id":3671,"date":"2017-02-14T12:36:21","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T12:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2017-02-14T12:36:21","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T12:36:21","slug":"reason-men-need-order-valentines-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2017\/02\/reason-men-need-order-valentines-flowers.html","title":{"rendered":"The Reason Men Need to Order Those Valentine&#8217;s Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>I drag my chair closer to the desk, grab a headset and click on the mouse.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Computer keys pound in the background choreographed by the women who sit beside me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>My first call registers on the screen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k6.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3674 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k6-169x300.png\" alt=\"k6\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hello, Karin&#8217;s Florist, this is Colleen, how may I help you?&#8221; I utter softly, so as not to disturb the other operators.<\/p>\n<p>The caller answers the greeting and the tap of my own keyboard joins the dance. I sift slowly through my first order and ultimately, begin to navigate the system with more ease than I expect.<\/p>\n<p>I am fascinated by this new environment. Thus, the reason I jump at the chance to respond to my friend&#8217;s email about seasonal help for the holiday. I have long been a fan of the florist which she owns and operates.The trademark arrangements considered works of art rather than standard floral medleys.<\/p>\n<p><em>I am here to dip my toes in the flower business. To relish the hustle and bustle, beautiful flowers and the chance to do something outside my own box.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I will marvel at the volume of orders, the behind the scenes secrets, and the army of delivery people who complete the magic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I will learn great things such as which flower colors pair best and how to pronounce intimidating botanical names.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I will experience the floral industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>But I am caught off guard.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>I listen to the calls as they come in&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k10.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3687 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k10-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"k10\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>One man asks that his card read &#8216;he is the luckiest guy in the world&#8217; while another pledges &#8216;he is still with the love of his life.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>A dad sends flowers to his little girl while another is continuing the tradition with his now grown daughter. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>A son\u00a0reminds his mother she was the first woman in his life and another man sends flowers to his mom each and every week.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>There are traditional Valentine&#8217;s declarations and those with unspoken words. There are serious loving proclamations and funny inside jokes. There are caring pledges and the quiet simplicity of a love which has withstood the test of time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I am wrong.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is not the business of flowers, it is the business of love.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I must confess, even I at times believe flowers a luxury.<\/p>\n<p><strong>An exquisite portrait of nature&#8217;s bounty with not enough time to view the wonder.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>But, again I could not be more wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3688 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k11-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"k11\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Flowers are not a limited luxury they are an endless expression of love.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Their time is not merely devoted to the vase they inhabit but the heart they travel towards.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>And when these fragile gifts of nature shed their petals their work is done. Their physical presence spent for a heart renewed.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The next time around, this writer will be with a guy who sends me flowers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The kind of man who will remind me &#8216;he is the luckiest guy in the world&#8217; and &#8216;I am still the love of his life.&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>A guy who recognizes the similarity between these magnificently fragile blooms and stems and a thing called love.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>I thought I would experience the intricacies of the floral industry.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Intead, I experienced love.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>(Flowers from Karin&#8217;s Florist located in the Washington, D.C. metro area in the town of Vienna, Virginia)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\/\/www.karinsflorist.com<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k12.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3689 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k12-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"k12\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k2-e1487041323990.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3676 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k2-e1487041323990-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"k2\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.karinsflorist.com\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3685\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k4-300x169.png\" alt=\"k4\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/files\/2017\/02\/k8.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3682\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/374\/2017\/02\/k8-169x300.png\" alt=\"k8\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(Photo my own &#8211; Floral Arrangements Karin&#8217;s Florist in the Metro D.C. area in the town of Vienna, Virginia<\/p>\n<p>Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist<br \/>\non Twitter @colleenorme<br \/>\non Pinterest @colleensheehyorme<br \/>\nE-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com<br \/>\nwww.colleensheehyorme.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I drag my chair closer to the desk, grab a headset and click on the mouse. Computer keys pound in the background choreographed by the women who sit beside me. My first call registers on the screen. &#8220;Hello, Karin&#8217;s Florist, this is Colleen, how may I help you?&#8221; I utter softly, so as not to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176,308],"tags":[263,310,5,229,4,309,80,81],"class_list":["post-3671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationships","category-romance","tag-couples","tag-holiday","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-relationships","tag-romance","tag-valentines","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Reason Men Need to Order Those Valentine&#039;s Flowers - How Great Thou Part<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2017\/02\/reason-men-need-order-valentines-flowers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Reason Men Need to Order Those Valentine&#039;s Flowers - How Great Thou Part\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I drag my chair closer to the desk, grab a headset and click on the mouse. Computer keys pound in the background choreographed by the women who sit beside me. 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Born to my native Brooklyn parents, I have a love of all things city and all things country. I found myself in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, which prior to The Office, nary a soul could envision less you found yourself on the hills of Interstate 81. I was held up there while I pursued my B.S. in Business. I have two passions: Business marketing and writing. The two are not so terribly different. Why? Cultivating a brand is in essence the story and the connecting of the dots of a corporate entity. I write features for various magazines and newspapers and I am a national divorce columnist (what can I say things didn\u2019t turn out quite the way I thought they would). I am also a former business columnist. For more than fifteen years, I spent my summers on the Jersey Shore in what I call my \u2018out of state\u2019 clothes once again magnetized to the northerners I find so familiar. If I were to brand my writing, I would say I write of LOVE. That is the core from which I begin most stories. I find myself drawn to dig for the moments in the story that are the passion that drive the message. It may be the love of what originally started a business or an authentically motivated personal profile, or simply the love of a subject being investigated which compels me to write. My forever favorite form of writing is the human interest essay or what I call, \u201cAn Interview With Life.\u201d The average day that is explored and somehow once again instills in us a joie de vivre\u2026..a joy of life. These human moments are the Hope Virus that spreads amongst us and can\u2019t help but propel us into better human beings with a larger sense of the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/author\/corme"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3704,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/3704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}